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Murders In Larndarn – Under The Microscope

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Following on from last week’s post about Murders in London, I hope that this will be the last time I feel compelled to address the subject.  I promise not to buy any more crayons for a while.  London is a big place so I thought it might be useful (and hopefuly interesting) to break the problem down to a more local level.

Borough Totals

Panic ye not, having looked at the above chart, I’m only going to aim my microscope at the top 3 Boroughs, in order, Lambeth, Newham and Southwark.  Anything more would just take too long and send my loyal reader into a deep coma.  However, if you live or work within the M25 feel free to send me a PM/DM/Carrier Pigeon and I’ll try and give you some perpsective about where you live or work.  All applications for more than one Borough must be wrapped around a bottle of fine single malt.

Lambeth

Between 2003 and end of March 2020 there were 146 offences in Lambeth that were classified as Murder.  Given the complexity (and volume) of the data, I believe it works out like this.

Chart 1
Chart 2

Shocking.  Rest your eyes on Chart 2 for a few moments.  Nearly 40% of the people charged with Murder in the Borough of Lambeth between 2003 and 2020 were in the 13 – 19 age group.  40%!  let that sink in.  That is OUR youth.  All of us.

Chart 3

The Afro Caribbean population is the largest group in both Victims and Accuseds.

Chart 4

65% of the persons charged with Murder in Lambeth between 2003 and end of March 2020 were of Afro Caribbean origin.  65%.  A significant majority.

Newham

Between 2003 and end of March 2020 there were also 146 offences in Lambeth that were classified as Murder.  Broken down they look like this

Chart 5

Chart 5 once again showing a different profile to Lambeth, the majority of the Accuseds are under 34, but covering a fair spread from 13-34.

Chart 6

Chart 6 shows a somewhat different profile of those being charged with Murder compared with Lambeth.  13 to 19 year olds still form the largest single group (30%) , but 25 to 34 year olds are not far behind on 26%.

Chart 7

Again, Chart 7 shows a somewhat different pattern to Lambeth, Black and White more or less evenly represented, and Asians becoming far more prominent

Chart 8

Chart 8 shows that almost twice as many Black people were charged with Murder than Whites, followed closely by Asians

And finally…………

Southwark

Slightly lower than the two Boroughs above at 134, not a huge difference over 17 years though.

Chart 9

Chart 9, sadly, clearly shows that the age group with the biggest problem is 13 to 19 year old, closely followed by 25 to 34 year olds.  However I find the 0 to 12 year olds disturbing.

Chart 10

Chart 10 closely resembles Chart 2 (Lambeth) in that the largest age group for people charged with Murder is once again 13 to 19 year olds.

Chart 11

Chart 11 shows that once again, the Ethnicity group most affected by Murder, either as an Accused or a Victim, are the Afro Caribbeans, followed closely by the Whites, very similar yo both Lambeth and Newham.

Chart 12

Chart 12, clearly showing that just over half of the persons charged with Murder in Southwark Borough were of Afro Caribbean origin, approx twice as many as Whites who were allegedly responsible for just over a quarter of the total offences,

What does all of this tell us?  Quite frankly it scares the crap out of me.  Our (predominantly) young men, and in some cases children, are either killing or getting killed on the streets of London.  These are not Domestic Disputes gone wrong they are Gang Related, Drug Related or even Post Code Related.  Party politics need to be cast aside and ALL parties work together to work out what can be done for Children and Young Persons in London (and elsewhere) such that can stop killing each other.

We have heard a lot in the last few months about Black Lives Matter.  Yes they do, ALL lives matter, but sadly a number of members of the Black population don’t seem to have a problem with taking Black lives.  This is WRONG, all killing is wrong obviously, but how can BLM expect society as a whole to take BLM seriously when the Black population don’t stop killing each other?  Anybody with any kind of suggestion whatsoever should pester the Mayor, the Commissioner, your Local Council, anybody who may have an interest and be able to work together with others to stop the killing.

Chart 13

Finally, let’s take a look at the three Boroughs most affected between 2003 and 2020. What werwe the most common methods for killing?  Chart 13 gives us the answer, far and away the most popular are Knives, or similar, followed at some distance by shooting.  Let that sink in for a moment.  Stabbing, slashing or shooting all require a weapon of some kind to be carried through the streets by somebody. Look at the charts again, and then tell me that Stop and Search is bad and should be abandoned.

If you’re still here I thank you

Murders In Larndarn – Some Facts

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A few weeks ago I wrote this,

Stops, Knife Crime & BLM. What Is Going On In London?

about murders in London.  I promised to update it when I had the updated info from the Met, well here it is folks.

My question(s) to the Met;

For the years 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 to date could you please supply the following information

1) The total number of murders reported to the MPS for each of the above years.
2) For each year, the total number of Victims and Suspects that were Male
3) For each year, the total number of Victims and Suspects that were under 21
4) For each year, a breakdown of the ethnic origins of Victims and Suspects (totals, not individual offences).
5) For each of the above years, the total number of offences where the weapon used was a knife or similar.

Are you sitting comfortably?  Then I’ll begin.

For 2017-2020 how many murders have there actually been in London?

Reasonably stable, showing a slight increase last year, but seemingly heading for a decrease in 2020, probably an unintended consequence of ‘Lockdown’.

So, who are the victims of these tragedies in London?

Of the total number of Murders reported above, the number of Male victims was as below

It seems that you are disproportionately about 3-4 times more likely to be murdered in London if you are Male, but who are the Murderers, what is the gender bias of those accused of Murder in London?  To be fair I only asked them for data relating to Males, completely forgetting that more than one person can be charged with each Murder.

How many of the Victims and Accused were Under 21?

I find that really quite sad, in a significant percentage of Murders in London the Accused and Victims are under 21.  Our youths are killing each other.  The News Headlines tell us this time and time and time but now we have some long-term stats to demonstrate the reality.

What did they look like? What was the Ethnicity Breakdown of Victims and Accused?  A thorny subject, one traditionally avoided by Politician and Senior Police Officers, but here goes anyway (I’m neither)

No explanation of that diagram needed by me really, more Black than White, and then a smaller section of the other reported Ethnicities.  What about the Accuseds?

Nothing very different there, Black being the largest sector, followed by White.

From the data presented above it is difficult to come to any other conclusion that Black Youths are Killing Black Youths on the streets of London.  That may sound like “Stating the Bleedin’ Obvious” and to a degree it is, but Politicians and Community Leaders need to bite the bullet and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.  The Police already know what the problem is and they are doing something about it, but that is not very popular amongst the Black Lives Matter movement.  To you I say this, Yes, Black Lives Do Matter, All Lives Matter, but if you want to be taken seriously then you need to stop banging on about Police activity (in particular Stop and Search) and DO SOMETHING about young Black men killing young Black men.

We hear a lot of chatter on the news about Knife crime in London (and elsewhere).  How many of these murders were committed using a Knife or Sharp Object as opposed to the numerous other methods one could employ to kill someone?

There you go, quite damning really. AND ALL OF THOSE WEAPONS HAVE BEEN CARRIED THROUGH OUR STRETS and could potentially have been found during a Stop/Search and who knows how many lives could have been saved.

Helpfully(?) the Met pointed me to a different data source that I had not encountered before, the Homicide Dashboard, which has plain stats going back to 2003.  How does that look?

So what does this tells us?  Not a lot really.  The number of Murders in London steadily decreased until 2015 when it started to increase again, but fortunately we have yet to return to the bad old days of 2003.  As for Victims and Accuseds, this data does not really change much, just makes the numbers bigger.  Afro caribbean and White British being far and away the two largest groups, and Under 25s being significantly more likely to commit a murder, although the average age of Victims has recently come down considerably.

Taken together, these two datasets really do show the nature and scale of Fatal Violence on the streets of our capital.  It is time for ALL of the appropriate bodies to shift the blame from Police etc and onto those ultimately responsible, those that do the killing.  Parliament, the Mayor of London, Commissioner Dick and Community Leaders need to work together and invest in the future of our young folk before they kill each other completely.

Your Country Needs You (Like Never Before)

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There surely cannot be a person over the age of 14 or so who is still unaware of the seemingly uncontrollable epidemic of stabbings and Knife Crime sweeping the country. Not one person surely? In London alone there is a knife-related murder or serious stabbing almost every day. Only recently a young teenage kid was literally disembowelled on the streets of our capital.

Politicians of all hues and senior Police Officers pronounce that this is completely unacceptable (it is) but what are they actually DOING about it?

Mainly nothing.  A lot of hot air gets spouted, think tanks go into overdrive trying to come up with the next big ‘thing’, senior Police Officers will have meetings and pronounce that ‘extra’ officers are being thrown at the problem, the government will assure us that new ‘technology’ is on the way.  The main problem is that there are NO extra extra officers, there are, in fact,  21,000 fewer officers.

Meetings are a very small part of the solution, but to come up with the promise of ‘extra’ officers is an insult to both Police and Public alike.  Every one of these ‘extra’ officers is either working what should have been a Leave Day or they have been abstracted from other duties, thereby creating a shortage somewehere else.

Almost every serving or former Police Officer that I know, together with a significant number of Members of the Public have a damn good idea what is causing the problem and how to begin addressing it.

Every knife used in an attack on the streets has been carried through the streets by somebody.  Whilst it is being carried it is vulnerable to being found by Police, and the ‘carrier’ arrested, but NOT if the Police Officers have one arm tied behind their backs.

Currently there is no ‘fear’ on the streets.  The government, in the shape of Camoron and Cruella, have savagely decreased the number of Police Officers, including the Front Line that they claim to protect.  Cruella herself issued an instruction to Police to drastically reduce the number of Stop Search carried out.  Since her edict both crime in general, and stabbings in particular have increased, despite what the Whitehall Mandarins might tell us.  Home Office figures show it thus

Assaults in England and Wales

Not a pretty sight.

My proposal to turn the tide would be to bring back Stop and Search.  Lawfully, Ethically, Respectfully, but Determindly.

Once the grounds for the Stop/Search have been established (and they MUST be) it should be conducted positively and efficiently, and properly recorded.

“People will get Stop/Searched who are totally innocent” I hear the cry.  Yes they will, that is almost inevitable, but the damage can be minimised by the manner in which it is conducted.  Officers could stop me ten times a day if it prevented one more youth getting butchered.  I have nothing to hide, nor do most other folk.   Yes, it is inconvenient, and can often delay us, but which is worse?  Getting a tad miffed about being stopped and searched by a polite Police Officer who explains why you are being Stopped and Searched, or one more teenager getting disembowled within sight of home?

Last year’s IPSOS/MORI poll showed that ost of the population still have a reasonable amount of trust in the Police.  FAR, far more than politicians of any kind.

In view of which Theresa May, why not start the process of rebuilding the Police?  Allow people to feel safe on the streets once more.  Instil fear of being caught and meaningful consequences into the hearts of those carrying knives, or weapons of any kind.

How can you help?  How does your country need you?

You can help today by simply writing a letter or email to your local MP, or the Home Secretary, or the Prime Minister or your local Police and Crime Commissioner voicing your support for some Positive Action and the reinstatement of the Police Force.  Surely no politician can ignore a mailbox overflowing with letters.  Police and Crime Commissoners are up for re-election soon, and who knows when the next General Election will be, but maybe not too far away.  They will all be looking for YOUR votes.

From an operational point of view a short, sharp period of Shock and Awe will remind a certain faction that they do not rule the streets, although they currently think that they do, and they are getting away with it.

Gang Violence In London And Elsewhere

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I shall probably be called Racist by people who don’t really get it, but, hey, I don’t care. Some things are more important than that. I shall stick my head, with my tin foil helmet, above the parapet and proffer my opinions.

During my working life I have worked the streets of Brent and Southall, both areas with a very high percentage of immigrants. I tried to avoid South London, even Cab Drivers don’t want to go there, but occasionally I was sent to Brixton to give them a hand with some disorder. I do know a bitabout violence and racial tensions.

The Home Office, and the Police Service have to grasp the nettle (I’d better not say bite the bullet) and do a bit of serious racial profiling (waits for shocked gasps and glasses of Prosecco being dropped). No, I absolutely mean it.

There are people out there, and you all know the sort of person I mean, who delight in calling the Police “Racist”. We were branded “Institutionally Racist” and it has stuck, folk love to kick the Police Service with it.

If politicians and Senior Police Officers are serious about dealing effectively with the current, seemingly out of control, gang violence in London and elsewhere they need to acknowledge two blindingly obvious factors.

1. There is far more, and worse, Racism between different shades of black and brown than there ever was between simply White and Black/Brown. To pigeon-hole people as White, Asian, Black etc does nobody any favours. Even British Asian, British Black and all the other variations we see are not sufficient. We really do need to mine deeper. Which African country do they originate from? Are they Sikh or Muslim? What sort of Muslim are they?

When I worked at Southall there were horrendous, and violent, problems between the Sikhs from Southall and the Muslims from Slough, but the suspects and offenders were all recorded as simply “Asian”.

The arrival of youths from Somalia complicated the issue further. To get to grips with issues such as these we need to look much deeper than skin colour. What is their religion, which country, or African State do they originate from? How are they treated by the authorities in their country of origin?

Despite the allegations that the Police are Racist or use undue/excessive force towards these groups of people, many of them actually view the British Police as ‘soft’. I was once told by a male prisoner of Somalian origin that he had no fear of the British Police whatsoever as we would not treat him anywhere near as badly as he would be treated back home in Somalia. We couldn’t even come close to the levels of threats and violence he would experience at the hands of the authorities back home. How do you even begin to understand that by describing him as Black African?

Youths from the Caribbean Islands experience similar levels of violence at the hands of the Police back home. Here they complain about being stopped and searched whereas at home they are likely to receive a blow from a rifle butt at the side of the head for not wanting to account for their movements.

I will no doubt receive some criticism for that comparison but that is exactly what I was told by a former Sergeant of Police from Barbados. It may or may not be the current experience but it certainly was according to him.

2. There is nothing for the current younger generations to do to occupy their time. The Tory Cuts mean that we no longer have Youth Clubs, the Police no longer have Juvenile Bureaux or Schools Involvement officers. The Police used to be invited in to schools to talk to the children, of assorted ages and ethnic origins, about the assorted dangers out there in the real world. It used to be Strangers, Railways, Risk of Drowning etc etc, with a library of suitable films to show to reinforce the messages. In today’s world it would be Knife Crime, the Gang Culture, Moped Enabled Crime etc, with some suitably hard-hitting DVDs and victims, or families of victims, to give first hand accounts of where this Gang Culture leads to. Intervention and Education at an early stage.

Only this doesn’t happen. Youth Clubs seem to have been consigned to history. Local Councils have also suffered some brutal cuts at the hands of this government and the previous coalition, and now all departments are literally fighting for their share of the meagre resources there are precious little left for averting Gang Crime. Police no longer have sufficient resources to dedicated any number of officers to go and give a presentation to a group of schoolkids.

I shall stop now before I get called worse things than normal. If some of our Community Leaders wish to regard me as Racist that is their prerogative. I don’t think I am. I think I am a realist, pointing out what Government and NPCC need to consider instead of blaming others.

Government and NPCC really need to start listening to the people who have actual experience of this problem, whether they be retired or serving Police Officers, Community Leaders or the families of Knife Crime victims. They might not always speak the same language but there is a genuine desire out there to resolve this problem for once and for all, but other people need to stop, take notice and take the appropriate action.

Do the youths of Great Britain REALLY want to go round killing and maiming each other? They may do at the moment, but they have no viable education or advice. They do not see their options. They make bad choices. That can be altered over time, but not if we carry on the way we’re going.